Food Consumers Now Expect to See a Wide Range of Food Products and Ingredients Available

Challenge 8

Food consumers now expect to see a wide range of food products and ingredients available in their supermarkets. This is due to communities being more multi-cultural, greater travel abroad and an abundance of TV cookery programme and food magazines, which encourage people to try more foods. Create a mince based dish using multi-cultural flavours and ingredients.

Teaching Aims

Pupils will develop their repertoire of food preparation and cooking techniques.
Pupils will develop their knowledge of food science and functions of ingredients.
Pupils will develop and build on their knowledge of where food comes from.
Pupils will develop their knowledge of consumer food choices.
Pupils will be able to apply their knowledge to make informed choices.
Pupils will apply their knowledge of food hygiene to make a safe product.

Objectives:

To discuss the UK’s multi-cultural society and the impact this has on the food available.
To recognise the wide variety of cultures and cuisines around the world and what influences the food grown, made and eaten.
To select and use a variety of multi-cultural flavours and ingredients.
To demonstrate safe knife skills.
To identify and use the principles of food safety and hygiene with particular reference to raw meat.
To make a mince based dish that uses multi-cultural flavours and ingredients.
To evaluate and test ideas and their own/other products.

In order to complete the challenge, the pupils could:

Use the internet to research the UK’s multi-cultural society and how this influences the food available.
As a class, make and evaluate a selection of mince based multi-cultural dishes.
Choose a country to focus on and then research the factors that influence foods grown, made and eaten, e.g. geography and climate, religious beliefs, fashions, history and culture etc. They could produce an A3 mood board showing the results of their research.
Research recipes from their chosen country and trial two mince based dishes. If mince is not a common ingredient used in their chosen cuisine, they should adapt a traditional recipe to meet the brief. When making adaptations to a recipe, pupils must take into account religious beliefs and needs.
Investigate herbs and spices – make a simple tomato or white sauce and flavour with a variety of different herbs and spices.
Gather ideas from local restaurant menus.
Watch a demonstration from a local chef or member of the school community.
Trial, develop and make a mince based dish that uses multi-cultural flavours and ingredients.

Suggestions for group work recipes:

chilli con carne
spaghetti bolognaise
lasagne
meatballs or koftas
beef burger
mince patties
shepherd’s pie or cottage pie
biryani
moussaka
minced lamb tagine

Useful recipes

A variety of useful beef, lamb and pork mince recipes can be found at:

Resources

Multi-cultural recipe planning sheet.

Multi-cultural research activity.

Mince fact sheet –background information about buying and cooking beef, lamb and pork mince.

Mix and match – cut out the food cards and arrange them into interesting combinations to create imaginative ideas for a beef, lamb or pork mince dish.

Recipe development – getting ideas – select a beef, lamb or pork mince recipe and suggest different ways it could be modified.

Initial ideas chart – use the chart to identify main ingredients, cooking information and any special recipe points.

Know your red meat poster

Red meat is an important food commodity and is used extensively in a wide range of dishes. It is important to understand the source, characteristics and seasonality of red meat when following and creating recipes.

Food skills and cooking techniques poster

There are a number of food skills and cooking techniques which are required to prepare, cook and serve a range of dishes.

Considerations for cooking savoury meals poster

What factors influence what you cook and eat? Being able to cook a range of savoury dishes means we are able to feed ourselves and others a healthy varied diet. There are many factors which influence what recipes you choose to cook

Applying nutrition principles poster

When creating and making a meal or planning a menu, it is important to take into consideration healthy eating recommendations to ensure that the meal/menu can be consumed as part of a varied, balanced diet.

Global Kitchen

The Global Kitchen contains four activities:

What is Biltong? Try to answer this and many more questions in our world food quiz
Find out about different religious celebrations with our Global Calendar.
Go shopping in our online virtual Global Foodstore. Choose your own ingredients to design Chinese and Indian meals.
Mix ingredients from around the globe to create your own 'multi-cultural' virtual pizzas. A good starting point for a practical classroom task.

Meat and the consumer

A resource with PowerPoint presentations, interactive Whiteboard activities and worksheets giving insight into the key considerations made by consumers when buying red meat.

The making of mince

This poster highlights key facts about mince and how it is made.Students can use the card activity to rank recipes into order according to a nutrient, learn healthy cooking tips or create their own recipecards.Suitable for KS3 and KS4 students.

Explore Food

An on-line nutritional analysis tool available free from the Food - a fact of life website.